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I never knew paramotoring could make me this sore.
Problem is, I was so focused, so intent and working so hard, that
being worn out didn't register until nighttime. Then it hit me like a
truck.
Yesterday was my first experience on the set of a network TV show,
Fox's "Sports Science."
The challenges were plenty, not the least of which was doing the
entire shoot in a constricted parking lot and immediately next to a
million bucks worth of production equipment. There were 40 foot tall
buildings or wires on two sides, 30 foot buildings on the other two
sides and a control tower runway 100 yards north. The control tower
folks were quite accommodating of us and we remained well clear of their
operations. That's the nice thing about a paramotor, you can do that!
"Call" time was 5:30am. We arrived on the set and checked things out.
I'd visited a month ago to determine if it would work and design the
layout so as to be both interesting to them and safe for me. The entire
area was about 400 foot square. I explained our significant wind limits
but also that it's typically calm in the morning which is why we started
so early.
To be ready for the confined area, I've been practicing launching,
maneuvering, and landing all in a 300 foot square area (300 feet on each
side). I figured that would give me some margin.
What little wind there was, less than 1 mph, was exactly opposite the
forecast direction. Fortunately, it was designed so we could launch
either west or east. Their set, with its cameras, booms, and other gear
was in the middle. I'll bet there were 40 people on this set; it was
quite an involved production, at least to me.
I had a specific corridor to launch through. That provided lots of
the challenge because, as the morning matured, a crosswind developed and
we still had to launch in the same direction. Our inflation and takeoff
area was long and skinny.
One time the wing came up crooked and I only powered up to a jog so
as to steer onto the right course before getting to the set. People had
to move out of the way but I didn't accelerate until I was back on
course and in the desired track. Man was that fun! You control the
wing's bank by positioning your body. Wanna go right, run slightly left,
get the wing slightly right then follow it around the turn. Being only
in a jog, I had limited brake use.
Launch after launch. It was a lot of work but extremely rewarding and
they all went off with no resets. Hopefully I'll have more on it,
including a very few pictures. Obviously I was occupied and didn't have
opportunity to take any pictures until it was all over.
Some observations. They'll ask you to do some very unsafe things only
because they don't know about our limits. But once I explained, there
were understanding. I simply explained what I was willing to do.
Communications, using the new setup, were flawless. We're using a
specific mic that works extremely well with our application and certain
radios and a thumb-mounted push-to-talk (PTT). Even at full power we can
hear each other perfectly. I'll be selling it soon on FootFlyer and will
explain it for those who want to build it themselves to save money. My
goal is to have reliable communications with more pilots when I go
flying and share that with others.
The folks on the set were all extremely great to work with and it
sounds like the final product ought to be interesting. I'm, of course,
looking forward to see the final results.
As always, Phil Russman, flying camera, was great to work with, too.
And I'll bet he got some great inflight footage along with doing an
exceptional job piloting.
I'm told the show won't air until about March of next year. My
curiosity will have to wait.
Choice of Gear
Thanks to Bob Armond of Paratoys who supplied 1 Blackhawk 172, a
Paratoys 30 m² wing, Andy McAvin of MacPara for supplying a 25 m²
Spice, and finally to Mark MacWhirter for letting my fly his beautifully
polished and perfectly running Blackhawk 172.
When they first called me, the show was going to be about spot
landing. "How accurate can you land that thing without power, anyway?"
was the question. Secondary to that was landing in a boxing ring. My
choice of wing was a higher performance glider that I could slow down,
the Spice 25. But it's still moderately fast. Yes, I could quite
reliably get into the ring, but could only slow it down so far. No big
deal if the emphasis is on just hitting the spot.
Then the emphasis changed. The "landing on a dime" became just get
into and stop in the ring. For that, a larger, slower wing would be
ideal. And indeed, that is what I did. The Paratoys still has decent
handling but, moreover, can be slowed down a lot.
You'll just have to watch the show to find out how it went.
The whole affair was enormously taxing, very intense, and possibly the most focused
paramotor flying I've ever done. It was also among the most rewarding.
But boy am I glad it's over! |
I've gotten permission to spill the beans. The show
is Sports Science on Fox Sports. The task started out as landing on a
dime from a power off approach at several hundred feet. All to see how
possible it is to land one of "these things" accurately. It morphed
until it was all about landing in the ring.
There was one tense moment. I was told to come in for
the landing so I shut off the motor. At 50 feet or so, gliding towards
the target, they came over the radio "hey, we need a couple more
minutes." Even if the hand-start motor was easy to restart (and I'm told
this one is), there clearly wasn't time for that. I continued the
landing onto the target. The issue was that crew people working nearby
didn't know about my approach. So we made the communications channel way
more direct and that solved the problem.
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